Letters to the Editor Saturday

My husband and I and our 6-year-old daughter recently had the pleasure of visiting your charming city. It was the second time for me over the last year (I came on a work trip in September 2012). I had to bring my family to the city of Savannah.

The genius of James Oglethorpe continues to shine through 280 years after he first sailed up the Savannah River.

Each square is a jewel and the past half century of preservation and restoration has created a lovely living community within the larger city of Savannah.

We are immensely impressed with the fact that both Forrest Gump’s bench and the beautiful Savannah Bird Girl statue are hidden away from the public eyes so that Savannah’s beauty isn’t overwhelmed with that type of tourism and crowding drawn by those relics.

With that said, we were saddened to see the character of Savannah being overrun by commercialism capitalizing on the city’s historic reputation.

Will there be a day when the charm and character of Savannah is mourned, and Savannah, historic Savannah, will be called “just another tourist trap” by those who return home from a visit and share the Savannah story with their friends?

We hope not, but we are not sure.

GAIL GODWIN

Baltimore, Md.

Be careful that we don’t ruin Savannah

Dr. Mark Murphy’s March 26 column, “Why I’m in love with Savannah,” was enjoyable and full of wonderful memories of his youth in Savannah.

I was selling newspapers on Bull and Broughton streets when Lady Astor made that statement, “Savannah is a beautiful lady with a dirty face.”

Of course, I looked around and couldn’t see what she was talking about. But thinking back on Savannah at that time, she was right.

There wasn’t any shrubbery or grass to amount to anything in the squares. The police and fire trucks ran right through the squares. River Street was a scrap iron junk yard one end to the other.

City Market, where I worked as a young teenager, was very filthy and smelly.

The Old Fort area between Congress and Bryan streets was a big blighted area where they held bon fires on New Year’s Eve. We used to play baseball on Sundays at Emmet Square.

A group of people said enough is enough. Let’s do something about it.

Those are the ones responsible for our beautiful city. It took years and careful planning for us to have what we have today.

My point is be very careful not to ruin it by allowing things to enter our city that are not good. There are some who would bulldoze those stones right into Savannah River.

We don’t need a cruise terminal. Sometimes too many things are too much.

BOBBY HARN

Savannah

Food for thought from a sane Savannahian

Joel F. Spivak, in his April 4 letter, tells us if we follow Biblical principles for marriage, death penalty and belief that sexual sin is sin then we are insane.

I will remind Mr. Spivak that Jesus is the law giver and said in (Matthew 5:17) that “He did not come to abolish the Law and Prophets but to fulfill them and not to relax the least of these commandments (Old Testament).”

Jesus spoke of Adam and Eve’s marriage as real in His dealings with the Pharisees. So Jesus gave us the plumb line and our laws should reflect God’s law.

As for the death penalty (Romans 1:32), we need to look no further than Brunswick. Just a few weeks ago two young men were arrested and charged with shooting a baby in the face causing his death.

People who kill know they’re only going to get three hots and a cot. Yet imagine if they knew there was swift punishment waiting for them — a public hanging, and the people could hear their neck snap like a gun going off. After 200 or 300 of these every quarter, and we could sleep with our doors unlocked again.

Yet we would rather have insanity in our streets and overcrowded juvenile and adult prisons and debt (another biblical principle — not to get into debt) to our eye balls, feeding and housing people who should have been executed years ago. Just food for thought from a sane Savannahian.

THOMAS DOYLE

Savannah

City should get tough on convenience stores

Reference to the recent arrest of Jay Suryekant Patel: Aha!

Finally the city is (hopefully) beginning to expose and dismantle the cancer of blight and source of “underground” behavior in Savannah — the so-called “convenience stores” which dot our city and neighborhoods.

These places are nothing but go-to places for gambling, purchasing of drug paraphernalia and alcohol and prostitution.

Perhaps the publicized arrest of Mr. Jay Patel will direct attention to the kind of criminal behavior we’ve come to accept from these places of business.

Clean ‘em up or clear ‘em out!

MARGARET KINCAID

Savannah

Editor’s note: Police arrested Mr. Patel on Wednesday and charged him with theft by receiving stolen property and fencing of retail property, which they said were connected to thefts of large quantities of laundry detergent, deodorants and other items from area Kroger stores.

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Wonderful letter, and Dr. Murphy's and your comments do bring back memories. Your statement about not needing cruise ships is right on the mark with what the majority of Savannahians feel. Unfortunately, there is one misguided and out of sync Alderman, Tony Thomas, who believes this will turn Savannah into the Key West of Georgia.

So glad you and your family enjoyed our lovely City. Hope you made many great memories.

However you are correct. Just as I noted to Mr. Harn, there are misguided Alderman who continue to believe commercialization of the squares, and cobblestones via a cruise ship terminal is Savannah's saviour.

Hopefully, that Alderman will give up on his little quest even if it means no more Ruth's Chris giftcards.

Savannah is an 18th century town being dragged into the 21st century by a mayor and city clowncil that is anti-business and treats the billion-dollar a year tourism industry like it's a hobby. Further, we are saddled with a city manager that hasn't a clue how to manage a city, nor has a plan for its future. Worse, clowncil has no respect for Savannah's history, which, under the circumstances, is understandable: our history, for the most part, is hostile to and embarrassing to the African-American community, which is at long last the majority of our population. Here's an interesting anecdote which illustrates the dilemma:

When the Pulaski monument began to crumble, a group of engineers surveyed the rest of Savannah's monuments for similar structural damage and found an alarming number of cracks in the Confederate monument in Forsyth Park. Then Mayor Otis Johnson was asked for permission to dismantle the monument for repair. "Sure," he said. "I'll give you permission to tear it down."

"Will you then give us permission to rebuild it?"

The mayor did not respond, only smiled.

Savannah is not only in danger of watching what's left of its historic charm overcome by progress, its squares nothing more than tiny islands adrift in a sea of commercialism, her municipal government is managed by a woman without the first idea how to reach that critical balance between past, present and future. And if Savannah does not create a Tourism czar to manage the industry, relieving clowncil of the burden of Slow Rides and double-decker buses and cruise ship terminals, then we will wake up one day in the rapidly approaching future to discover that the charm of the town is ruined and tourism has moved off to other places unspoiled by "progress".

I regret that it even has to be argued about. I think there are killings so heinous and killers so empty that being fed, clothed, and housed for decades becomes a joke. And we who are not heinous or empty become the butt of that joke and should have the sensation we are being had when a 'life' sentence is given. The spectacle of defense lawyers bouncing, ducking, and weaving with appeal after appeal after appeal to Rights, Rights, Rights is its own circus and the clowns perform all too well. Two, maybe three, levels of appeal then carry out what was ordered.

"I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse."
Grant

As someone who had no dog in that fight, I believe that the Memorial should be maintained.